1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a photography system, such as a digital camera or a cellular phone equipped with a camera, on which a camera module for taking pictures is mounted.
2. Description of the Related Art
A data transfer rate between a camera module and an image processing device is an important technical element in the taking of high resolution static and moving pictures. When an increase in resolution is more developed and a transfer capacity required for the transfer of data for one screen is increased, several problems occur, especially with an apparatus having a low transfer rate. For example, an extended period of time may be required from the taking of one static picture until an apparatus is ready to perform the next photographic process, e.g., continuous photography can not be performed.
Further, an image pickup cycle (a frame rate) may be slow for photographing of moving pictures, and the a picture quality may be inferior.
To resolve these problems, a method whereby the transfer capability is improved by increasing the operating frequency of a camera module is conventionally employed. However, while the resolution of a photographic apparatus may have been increased, an improvement in the transfer rate obtained by increasing the operating frequency may be approaching a limit.
Further, another method for resolving the problems has been proposed whereby two camera modules receive and optically process the same picture, so that the transfer capability is doubled (see, for example, JP-A-6-38955 pp. 2-4, FIG. 1). However, this method is not appropriate for general use because it is complicated when a polarization device is installed, especially in a small apparatus, such as a cellular phone, and it is difficult for the same optical image to be projected by two cameras, and because two image input systems must be prepared for an image processing apparatus and a device, such as a general-purpose image processing LSI, can not be employed, else the manufacturing cost would be increased.